The Ministry of Defence has chosen the UK manufactured Sting Ray Torpedo as its future torpedo capability alongside continued use of the United States Navy Mk54 weapon on the RAF’s Poseidon Maritime Patrol Aircraft.

According to a news release from the Royal Air Force, the programme to integrate Sting Ray Mod 1 on to Poseidon is now under way, and it will “give the UK a potent and sovereign torpedo capability, providing flexibility to the Poseidon fleet”.

“The RAF’s P-8 Poseidon is a multi-role maritime patrol aircraft, equipped with sensors and weapons systems for anti-submarine and surface warfare, as well as surveillance and search and rescue missions.

In-service with the Royal Navy, Sting Ray Mod 1 is capable of integration into surface and air platform mission systems. Sting Ray Mod 1 is an air-launched Anti-Submarine Warfare lightweight torpedo launched from frigates, helicopters, and maritime patrol aircraft against submarine targets of all types. It has sophisticated acoustic homing system and a highly accurate navigation system. The torpedo can detect, classify, and attack targets autonomously. It has low through life costs and requires no intrusive maintenance throughout its service life.

Sting Ray Mod 1 was designed to defeat the dual threats of fast, deep diving double-hulled submarines operating in the oceanic environment and the quiet, conventional submarine in coastal waters. The enhanced performance of Sting Ray Mod 1 is underpinned by the development of new acoustic and tactical software, drawing on knowledge gained from extensive in-water trials with the Mod 0 weapon.”

Group Captain Richard Osselton, Senior Responsible Officer, Poseidon Futures Programme, was quoted as saying:

“The use of Sting Ray and Mk54 torpedoes gives the UK Poseidon fleet flexibility and interoperability with our allies. I’m delighted to see integration of Sting Ray Mod 1 has commenced at RAF Lossiemouth.”

 

Tom Dunlop
Tom Dunlop
Tom has spent the last 13 years working in the defence industry, specifically military and commercial shipbuilding. His work has taken him around Europe and the Far East, he is currently based in Scotland.

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108 COMMENTS

    • Would be curious to know if it is better or not than the US option. I’m all for domestic but if that means a capability cut I would rather go international.

      • Mk 54 is, except for the homing head a 1960s era Mk 46 torpedo. The UK designed and built Sting Ray to replace the Mk 46 because it was no good against the then Soviet deep diving titanium and double hulled subs. ivans subs nowadays are in many ways the equivalent of those then soviet boats so Mk54 performance probably is similar.

          • Yes it has received software and hardware updates over the years. There is a Mod 2 update scheduled to come online in 2026 that features an entirely new propulsion system and warhead.

          • The Mk 54 performance in trials has been appalling. The inhouse US Weapons Trials organisation has written many a report criticising its poor performance and inability to meet the spec for performance.

            It took the UK probably 5 years of testing in water doing shoots against subs from ships and aircraft to refine the software in Sting Ray and it still ongoing now.

            The MOD1 doesn’t need to be broken down to update software either. It can be done in the Weapon maintenance sheds ashore through the hull via a sort of WiFi /Induction link

          • Appalling is a little strong to be honest as the latest published dote report could be summed up as inconclusive due to testing restrictions as a result of covid.

            Directly from the report:

            The Mod 1 Increment 1 torpedo shows no degradation in torpedo effectiveness from its previous variant, the Mk 54 Mod 0 Block Upgrade, but analysis is limited to employment in deep water environments. Details are in the June 2022 report. Preliminary analysis of shallow water performance indicates that the torpedo is trending toward meeting its requirement in some scenarios, but no data are available to assess performance in acoustically challenging environments. The HAAWC remains operationally effective with the OFP 3.5 upgrade. OFP 3.5 introduced improved flight models that effectively expanded the operational release envelope to include lower HAAWC release altitudes from the P-8A than demonstrated in IOT&E. Details are in the July 2022 report. P-8A aircraft require certification to improve HAAWC deployment flexibility. 

            It’s also noteworthy that the HAAWC which uses the MK54 reached IOC in 2022 which should indicate that it met the requirements to have been approved for this.

          • I would still say its appalling.
            The Mk54 latest Mod isn’t worse than the last…A positive?.
            Shallow water- Its moving up to meet the spec but its not there yet.
            Deep water Inconclusive. They botched the trials set up and got data from the test runs that proved nothing.

            HAAWC IOC means it has limited clearance for use in a restricted flight envelope.

          • What a weapon. The USA seems to struggle with torpedoes for some reason.
            I wonder if stingray is getting a wing kit or bigger parachute for higher drops.
            That is one thing I don’t like about the P8. Low level abilities. I still dream of the Japanese P1 in RAF service.

          • Would also be nice if we could deploy long range anti-ship missiles on the P8 and, for the T26 frigates, some kind of ASROC/Stingray combination.

    • Yes, given the apparent lack of alternatives, Boeing are rather cleaning up on the ASW market right now. may be some scope for getting them to buy some Stingray to go with them, but I think they’ll probably value interoperability with US forces and go with the Mk54.

    • Probably will be 16. Canada’s real estate, NORAD and NATO commitments will dictate that.All the 5 eyes will have the P-8s now.

    • With all this acquisition going on maybe the UK might get a few more and put some under a different roof? Too many P-8/E-7 eggs under the one hangar basket IMHO.

  3. “The Ministry of Defence has chosen the UK manufactured Sting Ray Torpedo “
    It always raises a smile with me when I hear the immortal words:
    “Stand by for action, we are about to launch ‘Sting Ray”

  4. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that we’re fitting them instead of the (apparently) not very good Mk54.
    But I think the RAF are being a tad disingenuous here, I believe that Norway led (and paid) the way in getting the formal integration done a while back? Any cost to us will likely be limited to any required changes to individual aircraft hardware and maybe a software flash.

    • Really. Haha. I did wonder where the millions for integration was in the announcement.
      Boeing could rinse a good £100m for it.

  5. Excellent news, both for UK capability and for export potential! (Assuming that integration with the UK P-8s means that it can easily be used by other P-8 operators as well)

        • “Mar 10, 2023 … The UK will give France almost £500m over three years to help stop migrants crossing the Channel in small boats”
          When it comes to politics, there’s no limits to what Rishi, et al, will dig out from behind the sofa.

  7. While it’s good that we are integrating Sting Ray Mod 1 to Poseidon, it has a German warhead manufactured by TDW. Let’s hope that if this needs to be used in the South Atlantic, the Germans will not object – as they are to futher sales of Typhoon in the Middle East

    • Hi David, although a nation that has parts within a weapon system it can prevent export, they cannot prevent the end user from using it as they will…in the same way the Uk has no ability to tell any nation with an aircraft that has a Martin bakers ejector seat how and when it can be used..but can prevent export.

  8. Does this mean it’s getting integrated with the same wing kit as the mk54 or will our P8’s be expected to fly low to deploy it?

    Would be very interesting to know how much this is costing as cost was previously sighted as prohibitive.

  9. Great news. With limited airframes uk has to get maximum utility, effectiveness and punch from each one

  10. This is very good news indeed the stingray is a very different beast the anaemic Mk54..

    stingray..range 12,000 yards, speed 45knots, 99lb warhead..quite electric pump jet propulsion.

    Mk54 10,00 yards, 40knotw, 96lb warhead, uses a noisier Otto fuelled combust engine..it’s also been constantly criticised for poor performance.

      • Why do you say that…that’s the publicly available speed…a 6mph difference is very meaningful when you are talking about nuclear submarines that can travel at 37mph vs a torpedo that can travel at 46mph..vs one that travels at almost 52mph…that’s over a 50% increase in closure rate if it becomes a tail chase vs the torpedoes speed and the subs max speed.

        • It’s one version of Stingray’s publicly stated speed. Both torpedoes can go quite a bit faster.

          Stingray pretty much has three speed modes that include loiter, cruise and terminal. The speed you have quoted is within its cruise speed range.

      • Is he ever…its way quicker than 45Knts

        The warhead on SR is also Shaped Charge and IM compliant.

        Mk 54 has the old Mk46 Blast warhead that was proven as useless against double hulls and SSGN boats

  11. GunBuster can now finally retire from the endless Mk.54 commentary 🙂 I tell you what though, if i was in Kilo/Lada and a P-8 dropped a Mk.54, 250yards away, I wouldn’t be un-worried. Hell if I was in a Yassen a P-8 dropped two etc.

  13. Slightly off-topic but Heappey claimed today that the P8 in Sigonella had to return to the UK for “Operational reasons” (Read searching for Russians)

    Does this mean that the remaining eight P8s are insufficient to do the job or that aircraft/crew availability is too low?

      • If that were the case they would have replaced the aircraft. It was needed because we had insufficient aircraft available to meet operational requirements. The question is, why?

        • well could be “operational reason” could read another airframe “requires maintenance” but we don’t want to tell you that we have to bring this one back to cover it.

        • You might want an answer Bob but in my experience if MoD state “operational requirements” 99% of the time means something broke and they don’t want to admit treasury penny pinching screwed them as the top table might get upset. If they needed it back for any other reason in would of been announced as “bolstering capability in home water” as MoD love to add capability from nowhere

  15. Blimey! Where is Gunbuster!!? We have learned so much from him over the years re Mk54 and the superior Stingray.

    Great news.

  17. Good, with other nations lining up to purchase the P8 we really missed the boat on offering MPA product. Hopefully we can at least export weapons for the platform.

    I saw a new US defence start up term its self a company that offers a defence products and not a defence contractor. We need more of that thinking in the UK.

    • Think Nimrod MR2 beat P8 in just about everything range weapon load hight.Yes some will say cost over runs but for me it was another cut MR Cameron and side kick Osborne. But this is good news P8 with Stingray. 😉 🇬🇧

        • A lot of the issues besides each airframe being hand built and therefore subject to the vagueness of being slightly different. Was that the 30+ years in RAF service saw numerous modifications being applied. But not conforming to the same configuration control, quality inspections or documentation. When BAe started inspecting the airframes. They found that say a fleet wide modification had been installed in many different ways.

          They firstly had to capture and document all these modifications and clarify the differences. These then had to be either signed off or ripped out and redone. All this additional work significantly ramped up the costs. As BAe had to produce aircraft with the same baseline standard.

          • So regardless of whether Nimrod MR2 could have competed with Poseidon, reality is that the condition of the airframes is what really hampered the upgrade. Of course, a further lesson learned here is that project forecasting needs to take into consideration the condition of the airframes before committing to the project.

          • I think at the time, those in the RAF making the decision on upgrading MR2 to 4. Thought they would save money and get the aircraft earlier. However, there were perhaps too many yes men within both BAe and the Engineering Authority wishing not to make waves.

            BAe did come with a concept to build a new airframe based on the Nimrod. But using at that time modern manufacturing techniques. It would have been at least double if not triple the original MR2 upgrade price. Hence why they chose the easy and cheaper route.

            However, like I said it bit them in the arse! As each inspected airframe was different to the next. But by then the contract had already been signed.

      • Nimrod MRA4 was never going to work. The airframes were 50 years old, and all were different from each other. New wings on an old plane was a terrible idea.

        The plan for a new airframe was much better, but of course Britain wasn’t capable of building an airliner anyway by that point.

          • Not really. Britain could have built new airframes, but there was no way the UK were going to invest the funds required.

          • I’m unsure about that Bob. Extremely expensive undertaking for what would have become 9 airframes. I always held the view the RAF should have gone with the P8 from the get go. Heaven knows it would have saved the taxpayer a bundle.

          • MRA4 was to be 21 + exports, as it was way ahead of P-8 then. So new build was doable. No will to do so though.

          • The issue was that the RAF wanted an ‘off the shelf’ option as the MRA4 was needed quickly, a new airframe would’ve been unable to meet that deadline.

            Of course that deadline was never met anyways, in part due to each aircraft being slightly different from one another, and the fleets continued shrinkage from originally 21 planned, all the way down to 9.

            It didn’t help of course that BAE gave up on commercial aircraft building between the 90s and 2001.

  22. The MK54 is designed for littoral use against slower conventional subs as the Mk46 has trouble in littoral areas and the Mk50 is too expensive especially when used against the mini-subs used by the Iranians and North Koreans.

    • Where Sting Ray does it all. Its fitted with a drogue that deploys even when tube launched that acts as a sea anchor to stop the weapon plunging deep. As the motor flashes up it unscrews from the torpedo and is left behind.
      So Sting Ray will do deep divers and littoral depths in one weapon.

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